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MOSCOWThe United States has arrogantly ignored Russia’s proposals to resolve issues related to its withdrawal from the open skies policy, while insisting that its grievances be addressed immediately, although we responded to these concerns on numerous occasions.
This was Russia’s comment following the abrupt withdrawal of the United States from the open skies agreement on November 22, 2020.
“When Washington understood that to reach an agreement it would have to reciprocate and address Russia’s concerns, they stopped the consultations and began to accuse our country of violating the Treaty,” Russia added.
Russia added that the United States used these implausible accusations as a pretext to take “countermeasures” and then to withdraw from the treaty.
It is worth noting that it was Washington that initially proposed the concept of mutual aerial observation in the 1950s, revived this idea in the 1980s, and initiated the signing of the Open Skies Treaty.
The United States has consistently presented it as proof of its commitment to transparency. However, it is obvious that in doing so, the United States primarily sought to obtain detailed images of Soviet territories that it could not access by other means.
The United States could not withstand what it considered an invasion of its “exceptional” status and began to create barriers to the operation of the Treaty.
Here are just a few of them:
– introduce a de facto ban on observation flights over US territory by refusing to allow rest stops and refueling for Russian An-30B aircraft;
– restrict Russia’s ability to observe the Aleutian Islands;
– de facto restrict maximum flight distance by prohibiting overnight rest stops at refueling aerodromes, which resulted in exceeding crew workload limits;
– a de facto reduction of the flight range over Alaska by wrongly including in it the transit flight over the open sea;
– restrict the observation flight distance over the Hawaiian Islands;
– introduce altitude limits for observation aircraft, which are not established in the Open Skies Treaty and go against the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization;
– unjustified delays in issuing visas to designated staff;
– breach of the deadline established for the payment of arrears for observation flights;
– inciting Georgia to violate the Open Skies Treaty;
– Sending old aircraft in an unsatisfactory technical condition to carry out open-air missions, putting the lives and health of the crews at risk.
For the past few months, Washington has been making hypocritical statements that it would be willing to change its decision if Russia revised its position. In fact, they never thought of changing anything.
This was simply a public relations stunt to mislead European governments and the public who were asking Washington to see reason.
As with other arms control treaties, the United States has deliberately sought to undermine the Open Skies Treaty.
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